What are the major goals for next year and beyond in the media area?

I think our goal is to proclaim the gospel to the world with as much power and effectiveness as we possibly can. We are constantly evaluating—and when I say we, I mean Peter Eddington and those associated with the media department—we’re constantly evaluating how to do the job better.

We all realize in the early days Mr. [Herbert] Armstrong was a pioneer in radio and television. In fact, he was such a pioneer that the World Tomorrow program had a major impact in this country. What’s happened since then is that media has become fractured. When the World Tomorrow program was first broadcast, there were few radio stations, and at night, most of the clutter was cleared from the air because they had clear-channel stations that stayed on, so it didn’t matter where you went, you could always hear the program.

But that’s changed dramatically in our age, because in our time every major city has sometimes dozens of radio stations and they all have different formats. Some are news, some are music, some are talk, and some are easy listening, some are rock. Classical, jazz, whatever. And so, therefore, the audience has been fractured. And most of them stay on until late. And so being on radio today doesn’t carry as much clout as it used to.

The same thing was true of television. When we first started on television, there were only three major channels, so if you were on one of them, you could pretty well guess that you had quite a large audience. But today, with cable systems and satellite television, you can have hundreds of television stations and every type of topic you can think of.

So today, as a result of that, we feel that we need to use a multifaceted approach in media. We need to be on radio because there has been a renewed interest in radio with many of the talk radio programs today. But we do not have the money to be able to spend like someone like a Rush Limbaugh to be able to get on hundreds and hundreds of radio stations. So we do hope to continue to increase the effectiveness of the Good News radio program, doing that in two ways. As the next few years go along, we hope to be able to have more stations and also to prune back those stations that we find are not effective and just stay on those that we find truly are effective.

TV—we have public-access television right now. In the last two Good News magazines we’ve had the TV and radio logs published. And we have the Tomorrow program produced by the Portland [Oregon] church area and the Good News program produced by Beloit [Wisconsin]. And we’re hoping that we can have those on 200 to 250 outlets by the end of this next fiscal year. Now in order to do that it’s going to take cooperation between those areas, the home office and the local church areas. Because basically most of the public-access television channels are free, so a local church member who would like to be able to put it on in his area, just basically has to contact the local channel and then we can provide the tapes for them. Basically we need people who can help sponsor it in their own local areas. So we realize that radio and TV are extremely important.

The Good News magazine continues to be our flagship publication. We’re hovering between 450 to 500,000 circulation. And we’re always looking at ways to improve it. Our goal is to make the magazine and our literature as effective as possible in reaching out to this world. We realize that it has a multifaceted purpose in itself—to teach, to educate, to instruct, to warn, to be a witness.

Our objective is to preach the good news about the coming Kingdom of God, but also to give readers hope now. So one of the things that we want to look at with the Good News magazine is how to make it more positive—so that there is good news, that there are things that people can do now. The Bible, as we know, gives a very practical approach on how to live life. As an example, how to have happy marriages, how to rear your children, how to be successful at work—everything that you do. And we started a new series in the Good News ("Living Christianity") and the emphasis in this new section is to show a practical application of the Bible to our daily lives. That truly is good news now and it is good news for the future.

We’d also like to emphasize more of appealing not only to the head, but the heart. We do a wonderful job in writing articles that clearly explain and expound what the Bible says, but we’re hoping to be able to write in such a way that it moves people, that people will want to respond. In five years we have the goal of having one million circulation for the Good News magazine, and hopefully that’s something we can obtain, but we’re certainly going to set that as a goal to shoot for.

The booklets—we have 30 major booklets that address subjects on almost every topic you can think of. One of the exciting areas that we’re looking into is developing our "first-contact" booklets. These would be smaller publications that a person might be able to put in their pocket, read in 10 minutes and be written with some human interest involved.

So this is an area that we hope to develop. First-contact literature would try to grab people’s attention, direct them towards our Web site or other literature, and then they could order the major booklets, correspondence course and magazines. This is something that in August we plan to bring to the Council to show them different examples, illustrations of how to do this, and then hopefully begin to proceed with it.

Our Web sites, we realize, are major areas for future growth. The big thing right now that we want to be in a position to take advantage of is the convergence of Internet and television. You can put a television program or a video on a Web site on the Internet; you could literally have hundreds of people watching it simultaneously. People could download it and record it. So we realize that as this technology begins to develop and expand in the future, we need to be prepared for it. We plan to upgrade our ability to stream information.

We want people to come to our Web site and do their Bible study, check for news, do research. Our E-learning modules are designed for that purpose, so we’ll be able to put the correspondence course and other booklets online. And people will be able to come and study. There are religious Web sites that have a million or more hits a month, and we would like to increase our Web sites to reach that potential.

What we must never forget is that God is the one who opens doors. He’s the one who gives us the opportunity for preaching the gospel. He can provide opportunities that we aren’t even aware of presently, that we don’t know anything about. As 1 Corinthians 3 states, God is the one that does the calling and He gives the increase. But He does work through human beings. And we have to plant; we have to help water. But God is the one who gives the growth and the increase. And so we’ve got to be prepared. It’s like the old motto—be prepared and the opportunity will come. If we’re not prepared, then we may miss an opportunity that God provides for us.

One thing we realize, too, is that we’re all a team. And the Church is working together with all of us collectively—through our prayers, our efforts, our tithes, our offerings, local involvement—to be able to get a work done. And so we do appreciate the help of all the brethren.

What are the major goals next year for the ministerial area?

Well, let me state first that Ministerial Services exists to serve and help the ministry and the Church. You look at the fact that we have the ministry, the membership and the youth within the Church. Ministerial Services exists to serve and to help all of these different groups. Our goal that we have for the coming year, and into the future, is to help the ministry to continue to grow in a loving, serving, humble approach towards the membership.

When United first started, we understood clearly the biblical principle of providing a shepherd and pastor for all of our congregations. That’s still our aim. And not only just to have a pastor there, but that he would have a servant’s heart and that he would love God’s people. And our ministers do a very fine job in that area.

But all of us can obviously continue to grow. The Ministerial/Leadership Program was established with this in mind. We realize that as the ministry ages, retires, has health problems, we need to develop more leaders, and more pastors to help guide the flock, feed the flock, love the flock. And so last year we started, I think, a unique program. I don’t know of any other organization that has something like this up and running. We hope to continue this program right into the future, to help train couples in leadership and those who have the potential to become ministers. And as a result of last year’s program, over the last year, we have hired five new men.

So our major goal is to continue to further the effectiveness of our ministry in pastoring and as part of that to help them to continue improve in all facets of ministry. And also in their speaking.

The health of the ministry is a great concern. And this is something that we constantly are talking about, looking for ways to not burn our ministry out, but to help them as far as their health. The problem is many of our ministers are multitasking. Even though we have smaller congregations, many are still having to travel just as far on the Sabbath as they used to in the early days. Some of them have three or four churches or more that they’re pastoring.

But not only do our men pastor today. Many of them write, many of them edit, many of them review on doctrinal and prophecy committees, sit on various task forces, run camps, serve at the youth camps, run Feast sites, are regional pastors and Ministerial Services team members, serve on the Council, ABC, the administration, plus the daily care of the Church. We’re looking at the workload of our ministry and how to adjust it so that we don’t wear our men out.

We have to realize that the ministry is older. The average age of the ministry today is 57 in the United States. In some of the countries around the world, it’s older. Such as Canada, where I believe it’s 62 years of age.

We’re looking at how we can continue to feed, teach and educate the membership and our youth. I think as most of you will remember, we’ve had a four-pronged approach to education in United. General education for the entire membership, ministerial education focusing on the ministry, youth education and focused education—where we focus on things such as addictions and alcoholism.

We have found that the General Conference of Elders meeting is a wonderful way of educating and covering topics of major importance to the ministry.

We hope to have one-day regional ministerial conferences this coming year, where we will be able to cover especially topics dealing with leadership, developing leadership in local areas.
We’ve had Youth magazine three years online, but we’ve found that in order for this magazine to be effective, we need to put it in the hands of our youth. So the Council has just approved changing the title Youth United to Vertical Thought. And we hope to have our first hard copy of that magazine out prior to the Feast of Tabernacles.

The idea is to have it in the hands of our young people and basically to start with it will be a magazine directed to the youth of the Church. But as time goes on, it will expand and be made available to the public. Right now, we will only, as far as the public is concerned, try to draw them to our Web site where they can view it there.

What are the major goals next year for the administration?

The home office staff is small, but it’s a very close-knit group. Our goal is to continue to develop and foster that closeness in our working relationship, to improve the skills and abilities of the employees. One thing that we’re doing to foster a closeness is every Monday we have a "compass check" where we cover a biblical principle that pertains to all of us in our lives or in the office, and we discuss upcoming events that are going to take place. We have periodic staff meetings to discuss subjects that pertain to the home office. Recently we had a number of meetings where we covered servant leadership and how it applies in the workplace. And those proved to be very successful.

We have a management team that discusses almost all of the topics that pertain to the home office, and topics also that we need to present to the Council of Elders. The Bylaws define the management team as all of the officers of the corporation and the operation managers. So that means that we have the officers of the corporation, which are the president and the secretary, Gerald Seelig, as well as the treasurer, Tom Kirkpatrick. The operation managers—Tom serves a dual function because he’s also operation manager over the financial area—and then we have Richard Pinelli, who’s responsible for Ministerial Services and Peter Eddington with the media area. I’ve also asked Matt Fenchel to sit in on the meetings. He’s basically our recorder and he writes down what we say, reminds us all of what needs to be done in the future. And Gary Antion as the coordinator of ABC, Ambassador Bible Center, and one who has sat in on the Council for the last seven and a half years. I’ve found that he could add also to our discussions.

We discuss all kinds of matters that pertain to the home office. Recent topics that we’ve discussed—our financial reserves, home office TV production proposal, assessment process for non-field employees, procedure manual, HR handbook. And over the last year we have discussed numerous topics, from small things like putting a sign on the door of each of the offices to tell who works there, to major policies that we want to present to the Council.

I’ve generally followed the procedure of discussing with the operation managers privately, subjects that pertain exclusively to their departments. But when it comes to subjects that are general in nature, that pertain to the whole office, or something that we’re going to bring forward to the Council, I’ve found that in a multitude of counselors there is safety. And so, therefore, I’ve tried to bring those topics before the whole management team. And just as the Council practices the principle of "in the multitude of counsel there is safety," so I try to do the same thing within the administration.

One of our goals this year in the administration is to standardize the evaluation process for our employees. In looking at the evaluation processes, Ministerial Services has developed a four-step process for evaluating the field ministry. All of the regional pastors are evaluated by the Ministerial Services team. Richard Pinelli evaluates the Ministerial Services staff. I evaluate all of the operation managers. Plus the officers of the corporation—the president, secretary and treasurer—are all evaluated by the Council. And the Council does a self-evaluation of themselves. So in looking at that we found that the one area we had not developed a system for was evaluating the home office staff. So we just about have that ready to roll out. We will be presenting to the Council, at their next meeting, the forms we have developed.

We are also working on an employee procedure manual for the individual jobs and duties of each staff member. One of the things that I’ve found when evaluating each employee, is that they know what they do, and they have it in their minds. But if for some reason they had to be replaced because of health or death or whatever reason, we would have to go back and try to figure out what all did they do. And just like the ministry, many of our employees do multiple tasks.

And so what we’re going to do is to ask each one of them to look at all of the tasks that they do and to write out a procedure manual on how they do it. And so if for some reason they had to be replaced then the next person would have a well-defined manual for what their duties, what their jobs, what their many functions would be. This would also help the next president. So when he comes in, he’ll have a procedure manual of all of the jobs, which will also include the job of the president, and so it will aid him in doing that type of work.

We’re in the process of putting together an employee Web page that will contain information pertinent to the employees of the United Church of God. On it there will be things such as all of our insurance forms, our 403B plan, cafeteria plan, the human resources manual—anything that would be of help. Our employees would be able to go there and read it and download the information. This will be up and running shortly. We’re also in the process of putting out a human resource handbook for all of our employees.

I’ve asked Matt Fenchel to help coordinate the human resource activities of the Church. In looking over the human resource manual, we discovered that there were about 26 or 27 of the policies that required action by someone who would be very much acquainted with the hiring process and dealing with those types of matters. And yet we didn’t have anyone who was actually fulfilling that. So I’ve asked Matt to help coordinate that.

So as far as the administration is concerned, we’re working on improving everyone’s ability to do his or her job and to continue to create a strong working, cohesive group.

What are the goals for Ambassador Bible Center?

When ABC was first started, the goal was stated that it is to pass on to the next generation of God’s people the precious truths of the Scriptures. Now, we feel that we’ve been doing that, because Ambassador Bible Center in a year’s time covers the Bible from Genesis 1:1 to the end of the book of Revelation chapter 22. And we feel that this is being done. We also find that ABC will help with the Ministerial/Leadership Program, even though it was not started to be a ministerial training program. But it is there for training of couples who have not had the opportunity to go to Ambassador College. If someone is to be hired and to be trained as a pastor in the Church, we feel that it’s important for them to have this as a background. This year a local elder and his wife, Gary and Jane McConnaughey, have come and have been taking all of the ABC classes and then will be going out to pastor a church.

We continue to refine and fine-tune the program every year. At the end of the year, we ask the students to evaluate the effectiveness of each class and also the strengths of the presenter and how each one of the presenters can improve. We take these evaluations to heart. They show our deficiencies; they reveal our strengths. We hope the strengths are greater than the deficiencies. And so, each year the level of instruction increases because we’re able to build on the previous year.

As an example, this year, Gary Antion was able to develop a PowerPoint presentation for most of his comparative religion class. This adds interest to the class, it visually helps the students, and it helps them with their notetakeing.

One of our goals is to continue with the ABC Mini-Samplers and the weeklong Sampler that’s held here each year in Cincinnati.

As an example, I might just add, this year in the Sampler in Cincinnati, I plan to cover the book of Galatians. And that’s a book that’s been much misunderstood by many.
Each year some of the classes are taped and made available to the Church as a whole. For example, last year Dick Thompson’s class on the Gospels was taped and put on a CD. This was sent out to all of the local church areas. Not only did it contain his classes that he gave, but also all the handouts that he had.

As the classes are recorded, they’ll be made available on the Internet on our Web site. Right now, you can go to our Web site, click under ABC, Ambassador Bible Center, go to resources, and you will be able to see the number of classes that are available right now that a person can download off of the Web site or just go and listen to from our Web site. This year the Pentateuch and General Epistles classes have been recorded.

What are the goals and objectives for serving the international areas?

Let me read to you from the job description of the president. The job description approved by the Council for the president, says this: "The president is selected by the Council of Elders to serve as the chief executive officer of the corporation (Bylaws article 9.1). The president serves in a dual role—national and international. While the UCG is an international association and the role of the president will not be the same in all areas of the world, he is responsible for the implementation of policies from the Council of Elders through the various national councils and the active, day-to-day management within the U.S. in the pursuit of the mission of the Church. He is expected to lead in promoting a godly atmosphere in relationships with employees and ministers."

So it says that the president serves in a dual role—national and international—and there are many times that the Council will pass certain policies that affect the whole international association. And one of the jobs of the president is to make sure that those policies are passed on, and if there are questions about them, to be able to answer those questions. The rules of association govern the relationship among the national councils, the Council of Elders, the president and the administration. I view as one of the goals that I have to help seek to promote a unity and understanding of the needs of each area and how we, here as the administration, may help serve them.

To that end, Norma and I recently visited the meetings of the Canadian National Council, sat in on their meetings and were there to get acquainted with the members of the national council. We also had the opportunity of visiting the Canadian office. So it helps me to hear from the ministry and the council in Canada their needs and to be able to see it expressed in a unique way.
In September we plan to travel to Germany to attend their national council meetings. We visited South Africa last year and even though we didn’t attend a council meeting there, we were able to meet with most of the members of their national council and spend the Feast with the membership in South Africa and get a feel for some of the difficulties and problems that they face. In 1998 we had the opportunity to go to Australia and to, again, meet with many of the members who were on their council.

And this year we plan to return to the United Kingdom for the Feast of Tabernacles, and we will also be doing the same thing this year. So part of the responsibility of the president is to know these areas as well as possible, so that when budgets are made out and submitted, and subsidies are requested, we can have a working knowledge of all of these areas.

One of the things that we realize—we are an association, but it must be based on trust and good will and based upon God’s Spirit working with us all. And so we’re striving to promote that. And one of the very helpful ways of doing that is the General Conference of Elders when the international men come in and we are able to sit down and just discuss their needs.

One of the major areas of needs that we see both in the United States and worldwide is the need for manpower. Not only are we an aging ministry in the U.S., but also worldwide. And helping in those areas, is something that we’re going to have to look forward to in the future. UN